matchamatcha

Woohoo!! Congrats!

Then I don't think we will be competing at all, haha--I'm wary of living outside of blue states...
(CMU really matches my interests, but...swing state?  Thank god there's no scarcity of universities in New England...)

You might want to have a gander at Thom Brooks's publishing advice for graduate students. It's quite a good resource. 
 
Some thoughts drawn from my own experience and mixed success:
Strategies A and B are mutually compatible, and collectively, they're the strategy you have to adopt. You need to have several papers in constant rotation, and for each paper you need to be a few moves ahead. Assume rejection, and think a few moves ahead: what journal will you try next? And after that? Rejection rates are high (like, 90%+). A rejection doesn't reflect poorly on you or even on your paper; it's just par for the course. You're aiming for an R&R, not an outright acceptance. Acceptance rates for R&Rs are much, much higher (like, 50%+). And what you need for an R&R is a sympathetic reviewer--in other words, luck. A lot of R&Red papers are not ready for publication in their present form. But if a reviewer believes in your project enough to R&R it, then don't be shy: make major revisions. No matter what, the paper will be a better one. Plus, it'll probably be accepted (or R&Red with much more minor revisions)--all you need is a sympathetic reviewer. Besides, sympathetic reviewers give better comments. Some reviewers will be callous, mean, or stupid (these days, I like to think of them as Kellyanne Conway. Choose your own scarecrow!). Don't let them get to you. Just sit on their comments for a week and then revisit them. Change what you can to pre-empt future misunderstandings, and move on. Familiarize yourself with the main generalist and specialist journals. You need to have a good idea (without having to check) of where your work is welcome, of what kinds of papers are published where, of what the typical paper length is, and of what the turnaround time is like at various journals. And you need to have a rough sense of the journal hierarchy, both generally and in your subfield. Conferencing is good, though maybe not for the reasons you think. IMO, it has two main advantages (with respect to publishing; networking is a different matter): (1) you generate a new paper for the conference, and (2) to present your paper you're forced to think about how to condense its argument. Thinking about your paper that way can really help you to improve its argumentative structure. But don't expect too much from conference feedback. Yeah, it's feedback, but nobody's actually read your paper, so they're totally dependent on your presentation. So the feedback generally isn't great, although it can help you to identify some of the more glaring trouble spots. Don't rely on conferences for feedback. The feedback is often inadequate, and conferences are temporally too far apart. That makes it all too easy to fall into the "I don't think it's good enough yet" trap. Trust me, I spent years making this mistake. Don't worry about rejection, it's inevitable; just send your paper out already! Nothing compares to the feedback you get (when you get it) from reviewers. I start my process by writing conference papers, and then develop them into longer papers for publication. It's easy that way because conference papers are short (like, 3K words), and then you have an idea to work with for the published version. And, in the meantime, you're networking. What I do is I bracket off a week every month (for a few months) and write a new paper in each of those weeks. I send those off to conferences, and then once I've got a few papers in hand I spend some time (a week a month for a few months) trying to buff them up for publication.I generated a lot of dead ends this way, especially early on in my graduate career, but it's a system that works pretty well for me. Your mileage may vary, of course, but it's a place to start. Keep an excel spreadsheet detailing which papers you sent where, when you sent them, when you received your verdict (and what it was), your submission number, and where you want to send it next. Keep a running document of paper ideas, and jot those ideas down as they come. When you're stuck for something to write, just refer back to that list and pick something that sounds promising. Remember that publishing takes time. Years, in fact, if you're counting from when you first started developing your idea to its final appearance in print. Most papers you read began their lives two or more years before their publication date. So don't sweat the small stuff, and just make sure you're plugging away at things steadily rather than haphazardly. The haphazard approach will add months and years to your total. (Actually, that goes for the dissertation too: writing a little every day is a lot better than writing a lot on some days.)

No.
Research that thing like it's a paper due today.
EDIT:
Yes, it is possible you can ask, but I really don't expect it and what I say above amounts to: I highly encourage you to get on it right way. Departments need to know asap. Ideally your advisors or DGS or mentor would've told you to rank all your programs from best to worst before any acceptances or rejections come in, so that you know exactly how you should respond should you get accepted somewhere. (e.g., turning down any offers that rank lower than that program). Of course, if they ranked nearly equal on your personal ranking, then scrutiny increases to the measure that they are identical offers.

Thank you very much to the both of you! I decided to accept my offer from Cincinnati!

Declined offers to Indiana HPS, BU, and Western.  I'm going to Calgary and I'm very excited.  It was an incredibly hard decision particularly since I'm turning down schools that are higher ranked than the one I'll attend.

Declined offers to Indiana HPS, BU, and Western.  I'm going to Calgary and I'm very excited.  It was an incredibly hard decision particularly since I'm turning down schools that are higher ranked than the one I'll attend.

Declined offers to Indiana HPS, BU, and Western.  I'm going to Calgary and I'm very excited.  It was an incredibly hard decision particularly since I'm turning down schools that are higher ranked than the one I'll attend.

Declined offers to Indiana HPS, BU, and Western.  I'm going to Calgary and I'm very excited.  It was an incredibly hard decision particularly since I'm turning down schools that are higher ranked than the one I'll attend.

I am one such person.
Why on earth isn't PGR 20-25 good enough????

I will PM you after I receive responses

In at Boston U. First I've heard from them lol. Maybe I was on a hidden waitlist?

In at Boston U. First I've heard from them lol. Maybe I was on a hidden waitlist?

In at Boston U. First I've heard from them lol. Maybe I was on a hidden waitlist?

In at Boston U. First I've heard from them lol. Maybe I was on a hidden waitlist?

Taking bets now on whether the post count doubles on 4/14-4/15.

Philosophers are just awkward in general.  I'm obviously including myself in that generalisation, and realise that I too am quite awkward.  I've had some pretty awkward interactions, and frankly, I get tired of only talking about what kind of philosophy I'm interested in.  I won't think too far into it though, I know I take a while to warm up to people, and I'm inflicted with resting bitch face so people take a while to warm up to me.
I think we do have to disentangle uncomfortable from straight awkwardness, though.  If the department feels uncomfortable and it's not something you think time will solve, then trust your gut.
PS.  @Naruto, if it's any consolation, I thought you were better at casual conversation than I was when we met at Western

Right. That seems to be the important upshot here: communication. Even if, for instance, we received an email from those limbo programs communicating what Dr. Paul did in her comment, that would be an improvement. 

Cannot agree more. It seems ethically irresponsible of the institution to avoid contact, but I suppose we are at their mercy. 

I sometimes wish that I could get a solid "no" instead of occasionally feeling a glimmer of hope.

High time someone call out PhD programs about this.
Happened to me, and three of my colleagues.
Unlike Tim O'Keefe, I can see one good reason for the practice: the dept can stay non-committal when it comes to tough decisions, and why should the dept take on risk when they need not? The flexibility is valuable to the department. But I agree with To'K that it could at least be communicated.

In at Indiana HPS after my inteview this morning. Throws a huge (but happy) wrench in my decision plan.

In at Indiana HPS after my inteview this morning. Throws a huge (but happy) wrench in my decision plan.

In at Indiana HPS after my inteview this morning. Throws a huge (but happy) wrench in my decision plan.

In at Indiana HPS after my inteview this morning. Throws a huge (but happy) wrench in my decision plan.

In at Indiana HPS after my inteview this morning. Throws a huge (but happy) wrench in my decision plan.